U2, Roof of 30 Rockefeller, Tonight Show, by JONATHAN COHEN
BILLBOARD: Fallon welcomes to the couch his new regime’s first musical guest (“who you saw earlier”), U2. “Have you ever performed higher?” he jokes … of the band having just played 70 stories up. Fallon asserts that activist Bono could give a speech about anything. “Can you do a speech about … this coffee mug?” he challenges. “It’s not a cup,” Bono begins, easily rising to the task. “It’s a container that demands to be filled … by love.” The Roots join in with appropriately emotional backing music. Fallon congratulates U2 on having raised more than $3 million so far for the charity (RED) from sales of “Invisible.” “That’s what separates you from other bands,” Fallon lauds. “It’s for people to buy the drugs needed to fight AIDS,” Bono explains. “We’re very grateful.” Fallon admits his longtime thought that if he ever had U2 on the couch, he’d ask the group to perform a song acoustic, “to see if you had the goods.” The band begins playing the first music ever performed by a guest live in-studio on the “Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”: the opening notes of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” MORE